Gilligan looked at the manager and shrugged. “This is really inconvenient, you know. My wife, she’s just joined me, and…”
“Oh come on, honey,” came the steam-heated voice. “Just tell them to go away.”
The manager, who didn’t believe this stuff about a dragon anyway, jerked his head. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. If you see anything please call the desk.” The guard glowered, but moved back from the door.
“Sure, sure,” Gilligan said as he shut the door. Then he leaned against it and let out a deep, heart-felt sigh.
“Okay people, they’re gone.”
“Thank you for rescuing us, My Lord,” the dragon said in an everyday version of the voice that had gotten rid of the searchers.
“Uh, you’re quite welcome,” Gilligan said. A talking dragon, he thought numbly, a talking dragon with a voice made for phone sex. Of course.
The dragon’s eyelids dipped demurely. “I did not think they would be so base as to disturb a couple intimately engaged.”
“Ah, right,” was all Gilligan could manage. “By the way, I’m Mick Gilligan.” He looked closely at Jerry. “I think we met once before, just briefly. Ah, someplace else.”
Jerry looked at him and his mouth dropped open. The fighter pilot! Right, I remember you.”
“And I am Ivan Kuznetsov.”
From somewhere Gilligan remembered that “Kuznetsov” meant “Smith,” so the Russian’s name translated as “John Smith”—a fact which reinforced Gilligan’s speculations about the man’s background. Jerry didn’t seem to notice. He shook the man’s hand vigorously. “Pleased to meet you.”
The other Russian was older and leaner, with the leathery skin of someone who had spent most of his life outdoors and the studied, unobtrusive manner of someone who preferred not to be noticed. For some reason he reminded Gilligan of the instructors at Air Force survival school.
“This is Vasily Gregorivich, my associate.”
Jerry put out his hand. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Gregorivich.”
“Vasily,” the man corrected, taking it.
“Gregor is his father’s name, so Gregorivich is his patronymic,” Kuznetsov explained. Gilligan realized he had never heard Vasily’s last name. He wondered what it was, but Vasily didn’t seem inclined to volunteer the information and besides, he suspected it would probably turn out to be the Russian equivalent of “Jones.”
“I am called Bal-Simba.” The wizard extended a meaty paw.
The Tajmanian Devil waved. “Taj.”
“And I,” the dragon said, “am called Moira. I believe we also met before, but I was in my proper body then.”
Gilligan looked hard at her.
“Normally she’s a redhead with green eyes and freckles,” Jerry explained.”
“Oh! Right The Sparrow’s wife.”
“Even so,” Moira said sadly.
“Now,” Gilligan said “Suppose you tell me just what the bloody hell is going on around here?”
The explanation took several hours.
FOURTEEN – FUDWARE, FANTASY AND AREA 51
They broke for lunch in a cul-de-sac with a convenient jumble of rocks to serve as table and chairs. The fare was the usual cracker bread and dried meat with magically heated herb tea.
“Okay, people,” Wiz said as they waited for the tea to brew, “strategy session. So far we’ve only been reacting to what we’ve encountered. I think we need to start taking the initiative.”
“Meaning what?” Malkin asked.
For starters let’s look back over what we’ve run into down here and try to see the pattern to it all”
“Well,” Danny said slowly, “leaving aside the lobster, we haven’t run into the same thing twice.”
“I think the lobsters a special case,” Wiz said. “So the similarity is that they’ve all been different.”
“There is something else,” Malkin said quietly. “They haven’t ganged up on us. Usually the first time you have a run-in with a guard his fellows come running. So far it seems we have faced only those things we have encountered by chance.”
“And that’s not good news?” Danny asked. “That we haven’t been mobbed?”
“I mislike it”
“They fear our steel,” Glandurg said confidently.
Somehow Wiz didn’t think that was the answer.
There’s another possibility,” Danny said. “Maybe these things all have separate patrol areas they won’t leave. That’s the way a D&D game is set up. Most of your monsters are tied to their rooms, or a stretch of corridor, and there’re only a few roamers.”